


thinking of a place

by flwrpotts



Category: Archie Comics & Related Fandoms, Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Sex Drugs and Rock and Roll, Slowwww burn, almost famous au is HERE ladies, and more tags to come as necessary xoxo, but mostly music
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-01
Updated: 2020-03-19
Packaged: 2020-04-05 18:19:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19045837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flwrpotts/pseuds/flwrpotts
Summary: Betty can feel her breath high and tight in her chest, pulse thrumming quick in her wrist with a dizzying sort of anticipation. She watches from backstage as the band tunes up their instruments- Fangs and Sweet Pea tossing guitar picks at one another and talking shit, Toni swigging from a bottle of whiskey. There’s something building in the anxious stirring of the audience, like thunder from a distant storm, and Betty has her pencil pressed to her notepad hard enough to leave an indent, ready to scribble frantic notes.The music starts like the first crack of lightning, like a giant turning in its sleep, and the blistering throb of it knocks the air clean out of Betty’s lungs, shock running through her fingers.





	1. slow night, so long

**Author's Note:**

> hello kiddos here's my ridiculous au of the summer(tm)! credit to cameron crowe for the bones of the story and kate hudson for being my forever crush. also, to the phenomenal and criminally underrated album "aha shake heartbreak" for a good chunk of lyrics to come!

_"I became a journalist to come as close as possible to the heart of the world,_ ” Alice starts, beginning her lecture. She puts down her newspaper, adjusts the tortoiseshell glasses that have slid a millimeter down her nose. “Elizabeth, do you really suppose that when Henry Luce wrote that he was talking about _rock journalism?”_

Betty puts a miraculous amount of effort into not openly rolling her eyes. “Shockingly, I’m not overly concerned with what Henry Luce would think of me, mom,” she replies, taking a sip of her orange juice. “Considering he died in 1967.”

“I’m just saying, Elizabeth!” Alice continues, undeterred. “There is a perfectly good opening for you at the Register taking over the local sports column. I just want to see you putting your college education to use.”

“By taking your nepotism?” she shoots back before she can stop herself, slight waver betraying her exhaustion at the tired argument. “I want to make it on my own, not ride off of you and dad for the rest of my life.”

Alice sighs, an age-old, disappointed gesture, the one Betty’s been on the receiving end of for as long as she can remember. “Just remember what happened with your sister-”

“Polly’s a flight attendant, not dead.”

Her mother waves a hand like the distinction is unimportant. “Just remember that there are countless girls who would be _grateful_ to be in your position, dear.”

Betty succumbs to the drawn-out temptation and sinks her nails into her palm, four clean, sharp points of pain. The shot of adrenaline it draws out is stabilizing, refocuses the small luxuries of their middle class kitchen, bowl of apples on the table and lace drapes. She exhales slow and places her glass in the sink, wiping away the four tiny smudges of red with her thumb.

“I can’t have this argument again,” she says after a moment, a proverbial white flag. “I’m going to be late to the show. I’m writing a story for Creem.” _And it’s a big fucking deal_ she wants to add, but doesn’t. Alice doesn’t understand the miracle this assignment is, the sliding chain of favors she called in to even get it. An assignment like this could be the launchpad for a real career as a music journalist. She wants it so badly she can feel it echoing in her teeth, thrilling and sickening all at once.

“Be back before eleven,” Alice says as Betty slings on her denim jacket, thrifted and covered in patches that her mother finds distasteful. She grabs her messenger bag and slides on a pair of beat-up white Van like she’s slipping into disguise. No longer _Betty Cooper: Riverdale’s Finest,_ but something different; some girl with dirty sneakers and a jean jacket advertising riot grrrl music. Someone tougher, someone’s who’s really _seen_ the world. Really lived through things, not just read about them in the pages of a small town newspaper.

“The show starts at 10:30,” she reminds her mother diligently.

“And don’t do drugs!” Alice adds, either not noticing or not caring that Betty has spoken. Betty gives herself one last up and down in the hall mirror and then steps out the door to inhale the California evening air.

The club is within walking distance, only half an hour from Riverdale, a tiny suburb just barely on the outskirts of San Diego. The sun is just sinking into the far horizon and Betty feels the thrill of anticipation as she makes her way past well-manicured streets and into the grit of downtown, skyscrapers glittery with lights and everything coming to life. She hums a little to herself, a song from the band she’s covering tonight, _The Archies._ Up and comers, more pop than rock, and with a lead singer with the sort of face begging to be plastered on tween girls’ bedroom walls all across America.

She got the job from Kevin’s dad, who had a friend who knew a guy who turned out to be _Lester Bangs,_ the single most important rock journalist of the day and her personal hero. It had taken her some serious begging to Mr. Keller, four letters, and an article about Siouxsie and the Banshees for her to get into his office, and even more persuading from there for Bangs to give her a chance.

“You know, you’re a real pain in the ass,” he had informed her the second time she had convinced his secretary to schedule her an appointment, drawing on his cigarette and flicking through the stacks and stacks of records lining of the walls of his cramped office.

“So I’ve been told,” she had replied, folded primly from her seat.

He had thrown an album to her, Betty nearly dropping it in her surprise. _Joni Mitchell, Blue._

“Well, as long as you know,” he had said, and then gave her the assignment: attend the show, find out if _The Archies_ are the real deal or hacks with good hair, and then write it all down.

 _Be honest and unmerciful_ she mouths to herself, holds the advice inside her brain like a directional and spitballs adjectives, turns of phrase that could alchemize the peculiar magic of music and turn it into words, neatly stacked lines of text in a newspaper. Honest and unmerciful. The thought alone is like breathing water for a child who grew up in the Cooper household.

The club is called _The Paradise,_ the name spelled out in the seedy blue neon lights that curl over the marquee sign. Betty observes the crowd trailing out the door, miniskirt clad girls and scraggly haired boys, all exhaling smoke from their cigarettes and and talking with an anxious, adolescent excitement. She tightens the smooth knot of her ponytail and takes a deep breath, skirts around the bouncers and crowd of waiting concert-goers to find the back entrance, where they let the band in.

She slips quickly under the chain link fence blocking it off, and then she’s alone in a ghoulish expanse of parking lot, empty under the abandoned flicker of streetlights. Betty keeps her pace casually brisk as she circles the building, satisfaction sparking in her in her chest when she spies the nondescript black door.

She raps her knuckles three times on the cold metal, straight to the point. It wheezes open after a moment, and the bouncer lobs her an apathetic glance. “Pass?”

Betty smiles her best _I was a straight A student_ smile, dialing up the Cooper charm to the maximum degree. “Hi,” she begins, “I’m Betty Cooper, and I’m here from Creem Magazine to interview The Archies.”

“Can I see your pass?”

She exhales. “That’s the thing,” she says carefully, “I’m on freelance, and-” 

The door slams in her face without warning, blowing the baby hair back from her face. Betty tenses her jaw and knocks again, clicking into a mode of one track mind, the kind that stops at nothing.

“If you want, I can call my editor, and he can explain-”

“No pass, no entrance,” the bouncer repeats, bored. “Go wait on top of the ramp with the other girls,” he instructs, and then slams the door again in her face. Betty screws up her face up in aggravation, blows out an irritated breath. “Fuck,” she swears under her breath.

She decides to do as instructed for once, and wait at the top of the ramp while she brainstorms a new plan to get in backstage. The metal stairs are unsteady under her feet as she jogs up, and she steps out into the ramp in question, the high up air whipping at her face. There’s a throng of slender girls already up there, all hugging and chattering madly, shrill and obscene laughter bubbling into the night air.

“Who are you with?” asks a voice, and Betty starts. She turns and faces the girl who’s spoken, a little apart from the rest of the group. She has hair a startling shade of red, glossy like blood and spilling down around her elbows, held back by a satin band printed with cherry blossoms. The air is chilly so high up but she doesn’t appear to notice, dressed in a red silk robe cinched tightly around her waist.

“Sorry?” Betty asks, not getting the question.

The girl rolls her eyes, annoyed. “Who are you _with?”_ she repeats, petulant. “What band?”

“Oh,” Betty says. “I’m here to review The Archies. I’m a journalist. I’m not a-” she cuts herself off abruptly, silently cursing her lack of forethought. “Not a- you know.”

If possible, the girl’s eyebrow arches even more. She looks poised with an acid rejoinder, but another girl appears next to her before she can say anything, walking slowly up to examine Betty.

“Not a what?” says the newest stranger, dryly amused. She removes her clear lavender sunglasses slowly, like a movie star, and Betty examines the ostentatious fur trim on the mysterious girl’s jacket, something that would look ridiculous n anyone else but she carries off as glamorous.

“Not a groupie,” Betty says, embarrassment pricking at her, and both girls groan in aggravation.

“Sorry,” Betty adds quickly, digging her nails into her hand. Shame wells like the tiny pools of blood in her palm.

“This is Veronica Lodge,” says the redhead grandly, like Betty is supposed to recognize the name. The girl in question steps closer to Betty, throwing all her focus onto her.

“Groupies sleep with rock stars because they want to be near someone famous,” intones Veronica, somber like a well-practiced speech. “We’re here because of the _music._ We are _Band Aids.”_

“She used to run a school for Band Aids,” Cheryl adds on, equal parts disinterested and condescending, like a particularly bitchy babysitter.

“We don’t sleep with the band members,” Veronica continues. “We support the music. We _inspire_ the music. We’re here because of the music.” She pauses, gives Betty another long look. “It’s really not so different from what you’re here for.”

Feeling thoroughly chastised, Betty nods and ducks her head, twists her scuffed sneaker into the ground. She feels awkward and ungainly standing next to this crowd of elaborately made up girls, all wearing platform heels and bright lipstick, long necked like swans.

“Anyways,” Veronica says, picking her monologue backup from the silence like its a forgotten thread. “I’m retired now. I’m just back visiting some old friends.” She has an elegant, disaffected manner about her, like an old movie star, and Betty wants to capture it in print, the cinematic glow of the moonlight on her dark hair.

“It’s all happening!” chimes a voice, and then another girl saunters up onto the platform, teetering in her rocket-high heels.

“Josie,” greets the redhead, sharp gaze softened by what seems to be genuine affection. “You made it.”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” the girl breathes in response, tugging at the taut, rubbery material of her absurdly tiny miniskirt. “A solo tour isn’t enough to stop me from a reunion with my best girls.”

“Josie, meet our journalist friend,” Veronica says, gesturing to Betty. “Journalist friend, meet Cheryl Blossom and Josie McCoy. And you are…”

“Betty,” she says, thrusting out a hand to shake. It rings flat against the exotic glamour of names like _Blossom._ “Betty Cooper.”

Josie takes her hand to be polite, shakes once, bony and soft-skinned. Betty prays that there’s no visible blood from the inside of her palm.

The door bangs open once more, and another girl appears. “It’s all happening!” she screeches, and Betty marks the repeated use, some sort of catchphrase or inside joke so old that it doesn’t even ring odd to them. Josie and Cheryl bounce down the stairs, heels like staccato gunshots against the metal, and Veronica grabs Betty’s wrist, tugs her after them.

The new girl slaps passes on their arms, half empty bottle of champagne clutched in one manicured hand. She hands one to Betty without even seeming to notice that she’s a stranger. _Bingo,_ Betty thinks to herself, giddy with relief.

She slides in with the crowd of girls, trying to be nondescript, but a hand circles her bicep before she can get in the door.

“Oh no,” says the bouncer, “Not this one.” He slides the door jamb out, preventing her from getting inside.

Veronica flashes a glossy smile. “She’s with us,” she explains, grabbing Betty’s hand and attempting to pull her through the door. The bouncer grimaces, muscles Betty back out the door. “She wasn’t with you before,” he says, voice unamused.

“Are you going to turn this into _a thing?”_ Cheryl asks, sounding bored by the concept, and Betty flinches, manners prickling at the thought of inconveniencing them.

“All of you can wait outside!” the bouncer snaps, done with the discussion, and Betty pulls her arm back from where she’s been keeping the door open.

“I don’t want to cause any trouble,” she explains, well-bred Cooper charm shining through. “I’ll wait.”

“I’ll take care of this,” Veronica promises, eyes dark and serious as the door slams shut. “If I can!”

Betty doesn’t slam her palm into the metal of the door, but it’s a near thing. She sighs and runs her fingers through the soft waves of her hair, yanks it all back up into a tight ponytail. _New plan, Cooper_ she thinks to herself, trying to puzzle out the feasibility of getting in through the fire escape. Everything she wants is on the other side of that door.

An engine revs then, and Betty pivots on one heel to see a tour bus pulling up at the top of the ramp, spilling out four scraggly, dark-haired boys and a girl, muscling their instruments out of the storage and laughing. _The Serpents Tour 73_ reads their tour bus, and the pieces click together in her brain. The opening band. She digs through her memory until she can remember their names, gleaned from some small write-up in a local newspaper. There had hardly been anything- just a logo, a snake tangled up with a crown, dark and menacing. A strange opening pick for the clean rock that _The Archies_ sell so well.

The five of them look weary and a little unkempt, all beat up leather jackets and hair that is less artfully tousled and more put through a natural disaster. Still, under the single lightbulb they’re a live action album cover, standing in formation like it’s second nature. The girl, absurdly tiny compared to the four boys, is talking loudly about something- “We would have _been_ on time if Jones hadn’t insisted on rewriting the bridge for the third fucking time in as many days.”

The tallest boy presses the buzzer on the door with the nose of his guitar case. It goes unanswered, and an older man steps forward, bangs harshly on the door. “Let us in, we’re the Serpents!” he hollers. “We’re on the show!” _Manager,_ Betty thinks, taking in the frown lines and well aged contempt.

This is her moment to strike. “Hi,” she says, injecting her voice with the sort of breathless naivety that always seems to work on boys in the band. “I’m a journalist, I write for Creem Magazine.”

“The enemy!” says the tallest boy, sneering. A tattoo of a snake curls up his neck, fangs catching under the choked light. “A _rock writer.”_

“I’d like to interview you, or someone from your band,” Betty continues, undeterred.

“I’m sorry but could you please _fuck off?”_ the girl says, weaving past Betty to slam her tiny fist against the door. “We kind of have bigger concerns right now.”

The lead singer- _Sweet Pea_ , she thinks his name is- steps forward, wound up now. “You guys never even fucking listen to our records,” he begins. “Do you even know what your magazine said about us? _So caught up in its own deceit that it stops being clever!”_

Betty is unable to help herself. “Actually, it was Rolling Stone that said that,” she says.

“Yeah, okay. Fuck off anyways,” he says, turning back.

“We play for the fans, not the critics,” adds someone, and Betty turns to see the drummer straighten up from where he’s slouched against the doorway. He’s more slender than the other two, and prettier too, angular and elegant like a Modigliani painting. She notes the drumstick he’s twirling between his long, narrow fingers, a nervous tic. There’s a dark electricity about him, something emanating off the edges of his sharp silhouette.

“Why can’t someone be both?” she asks, stubborn. The drummer rolls his eyes, doesn’t reply. Betty takes a deep breath, tries to come up with one last play.

“Sweet Pea. Toni. Fangs. Jughead,” she says, praying she’s remembering the names correctly. “I love your band. I think the latest album is a big step forward for your sound. Producing it yourselves was definitely the right move. Good luck with the show.”

She turns and starts to walk away, teeth sunk hard into her lower lip, making her way up the ramp. There’s one, two, three beats of silence.

“Well, don’t stop _there!”_ Sweet Pea yells, good natured, and Betty pauses, turns back to the band.

“Yeah, come back here,” Toni adds, appraising Betty with a new gaze. They wave her back, and she obliges, smiling. The door opens, finally, and a redheaded boy sticks his head out, instantly charming, all-American. Archie Andrews, frontman of _The Archies._

“Hey, guys,” he says, and he and Jughead clap hands, throw their arms around one another in a way that suggests deep history, old lore. “Ready for the show?”

“Always, Andrews,” drawls Sweet Pea. He turns to Betty. “Archie, this is the enemy. Enemy, this is Andrews.”

“Betty Cooper,” she corrects, extending a hand, and Archie shakes it. “A journalist?” he asks, and she nods.

“Very cool,” he says, sounding entirely genuine. “Alright, well, we should get in.”

Betty braces herself for round three. The band herds her in with them and the bouncer immediately spots her, squares off for a confrontation. “Not this one,” he says.

Archie claps the guy on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, she’s with us,” he says easily.

“She’s not with you,” the bouncer exclaims. “She’s not with you, she’s not with them, she’s _not coming in.”_

Sweet Pea, craving confrontation, moves closer to the bouncer, intimidates him with the sheer force of his height.

The bouncer glances at Betty one last time. “Enjoy San Diego,” he says, sour, and Betty grins hard as she finally, _finally_ gets inside.

Backstage is tumultous with lights, sound, smoke floating up from the different machines. Betty can feel her heartbeat quicken in her chest, taking in the various crowds of people, the music that seems to rile people up. There’s something kindling, an anticipation she can feel building up, something that makes the hair on the back of her neck prickle.

She hustles to keep up with the band, walking briskly as they careen down the hallway, catching up with the various roadies and band geeks cluttering the hallways. _The Serpents_ sweep into a small dressing room, and Betty somehow finds herself inside, caught in the riptide of their celebrity.

She perches on the dressing room table, sticky with old hairspray and hot under the vanity lights, and clicks on her recorder, the telltalle hum kicking in.

“Why rock and roll?” she asks, aiming the question as Sweet Pea but leaving the question open to the room. He takes a palm of shaving cream and rubs it into his mess of hair, some sort of makeshift mousse.

He shrugs. “Angry kid, wrong side of the tracks,” he explains, leader singer confidence almost covering his discomfort. “Rock was an escape.”

“That’s how it was for all of us,” Toni adds, taking a swig of the bottle of Jack Daniels dangling between her fingers. “We met in detention in high school, believe it or not.”

“And now?” Betty prods. Fangs tunes his guitar, ripping through unamplified guitar licks.

“It’s not what you put in it,” Jughead says, breaking his silence. He’s sitting backwards in the cheap metal chair in the middle of the room, drumsticks still in hand, tapping a quiet, frenetic beat onto the dressing table. “It’s not what you put in, it’s what you leave out.”

“What do you mean?”

“Rock is a declaration of who you are,” he says, a little showy but so genuine that Betty can see it shining in his face. “It’s like- listen to Marvin Gaye. A song like _What’s Going On._ That single _woo_ at the end of the second verse. You know?”

Betty smiles, amused. “I know the _woo,”_ she says, warmed despite herself. Jughead’s face is rapturous, devout, the face of a true believer.

“That’s what you remember,” he says. “There’s only one, and it makes the song. _That’s_ what makes it great. That’s rock and roll.” He takes a drag off the cigarette smoldering in an ashtray and blows smoke, looking pensive. Betty holds the microphone steady, tries not to focus on the artful curve of his neck, the hungry gleam in his expression.

Sweet Pea looks impressed. “Man, we used to talk about this stuff more,” he says.

Toni flicks a look at her. “This is the most honest we’ve ever been in an interview,” she says, suspicious. “You’re the first press guy we’ve ever made friends with. And you’re supposed to be the enemy” It’s not a compliment, but Betty is flattered regardless, trying to mentally take down every detail in the room.

The older man from outside appears again, and in better lighting Betty can see that he’s clearly related to Jughead- same dark hair, same moody eyes, same uneasy, restless posture. His walkie talkie crackles at his side, and he takes a swig of beer.

“Ten minutes till showtime,” he calls, voice authoritative. “Anyone who isn’t the band needs to get out.”

Betty clicks off the recorder and slides from her perch on the table, swept out in the chaos of a pre-show ritual. “Thanks again!” she calls, and Sweet Pea points at her while someone tries to dab at his face with makeup.

“Find us after the show!” he calls, and Betty nods, thrilled.

She wanders until she finds the backstage steps, out of the way but with a good vantage point, and sits down there. She drops her messenger bag and digs the notepad out of her pocket, starts to scribble frantic notes down before she can forget.

“I got you a pass,” says a voice, and then Veronica drops onto the stair next to her, backstage pass held in one hand.

“Thanks,” Betty says quickly, distracted with finishing a sentence. “I got in with the opener.”

Another band is tuning up onstage, and Veronica tips her head back to listen, eyes falling shut. “How did you get started in all this?” Betty asks, curious despite herself.

Veronica smirks at her, velvet smooth and rum sweet. “It’s a long story,” she says, and slides her purple sunglasses up the bridge of her nose. “How did _you_ get started in all of this?”

Betty pauses the franic scratching of her pencil. “It’s a long story,” she says, wry, and Veronica laughs. The brunette sits up and leans into where Betty is sitting, reading her cursive messy notes.

“Ah, _The Serpents,”_ she says, her smile knowing. “They’re always more fun on the way up.” Betty is about to ask her what she means, but she’s cut off before she can say anything.

“The enemy!” calls a voice, delighted, and Betty twists and sees Archie, guitar slung across his torso and grin lighting up a face, all high school quarterback and kid on Christmas morning.

“Hey, Archie,” she says, and Veronica turns to dig through her little beaded purse, fumbling with a pack of Parliaments. “This is Veronica Lodge,” she introduces, sweeping a hand. Veronica’s shoulders tense, but she turns, something guilty lingering around the edges of her smile.

They look at one another, Betty in between them like a barricade, and the air changes, seems to hum with something strange, threaded with a common history. _Oh,_ Betty thinks, watching as Veronica elegantly slides back up in her chair, offering a well-manicured hand.

“Pleasure,” she says, sly, and Archie looks a little dumbstruck as he reaches out to take her hand. “Veronica Lodge,” he says, teasing, “Like the real estate magnate?”

“Have we met?” she counters back, breathless. Their hands are still loosely linked in the space between their bodies, and Archie takes his other hand and uses it to tuck a lock of ink dark hair behind her ear.

Veronica places a hand over her face, fingers splayed, and for a moment Betty thinks there are tears shining in her eyes. But she laughs instead, and Archie smiles at her, fondness and something like pride folded up in his expression. They pull their hands back at the same time, finally, and Veronica brushes at her face, smudging the glitter on her cheekbone.

Betty feels invisible in the wake of such a moment, undone by the longing in a singular glance, and it’s the best feeling, the journalistic kind, like melting into the surroundings and still being aware, watching the story as it unfolds in front of you. She bites the tip of her pencil, clocking the flush of Archie’s neck, the way Veronica drops her gaze and smiles at the floor, the nearest to earnest Betty’s even seen her.

“Archie!” calls Dilton, their bassist, from across the backstage, voice terse and wheedling. “We’re doing soundcheck!”

“Yeah, just a minute!” Archie calls, not looking, gaze fixed on Veronica. He swallows hard. “Will I see you after the show?”

Veronica grins, and suddenly she is back in control, mask screwed on so tightly Betty can hardly remember the temporary lapse. “I’ll see what I can do,” she teases, coy, and finally takes a drag off her cigarette, burned down nearly to the filter. Archie nods, and then jogs over to where the rest of his band is, all with well-coiffed hair and pretty boy smirks, well polished like plastic.

“Come on,” Veronica says, standing suddenly, a little off balance. “You’re going to want to watch The Serpents. They’re something else.”

“Really?” Betty asks, nose scrunching as she follows Veronica’s silverquick threading through the rowdy clumps of people.

“Ladies and gentleman,” calls a loud, gruff voice from the stage. It’s the manager, the one related to Jughead, looking younger under the boiling lights of the stage. “Please help me in welcoming The Serpents to the Paradise!”

Betty can feel her breath high and tight in her chest, pulse thrumming quick in her wrist with a dizzying sort of anticipation. She watches from backstage as the band tunes up their instruments- Fangs and Sweet Pea tossing guitar picks at one another and talking shit, Toni swigging from a bottle of whiskey. There’s something building in the anxious stirring of the audience, like thunder from a distant storm, and Betty has her pencil pressed to her notepad hard enough to leave an indent, ready to scribble frantic notes.

The music starts like the first crack of lightning, like a giant turning in its sleep, and the blistering throb of it knocks the air clean out of Betty’s lungs, shock running through her fingers.

 _Slow nights so long_ howls Sweet Pea into the microphone, his teeth flashing sharp and white under the sticky pink neon and smoke, microphone curled in one hand in drink in the other, close up to his face. But it’s Jughead Betty watches, tapping the pedal constantly like an unerring heartbeat.

“I told you they were something else,” says a cool, amused voice in her ear, and Betty startles out of her reverie, glances over to where Veronica is standing next to her. She exhales a lungful of smoke, smiles her Cheshire Cat grin, the one that promises something illicit.

“That’s one way to put it,” she agrees absently, gaze still fixed on Jughead, his dark hair and white t-shirt, body curled over the drumkit like the audience isn’t even there. He glances suddenly up and catches her stare, meets her eyes like tipping back the barrel of a gun.

Betty swallows hard and he winks at her, dark eyed and sly, never missing a beat as the band slashes through the final, brutal chords of the song. She can taste ozone between her teeth. _Something wicked this way comes_ she thinks to herself, and it’s a promise.


	2. king of the rodeo

They’re so loud and so good for an opener that Betty can’t quite believe it, all four handling the melody like it’s hurting them. _Taper jean girl with a motel face_ Sweet Pea sings, so raw it hurts, and Betty wonders if everyone in the crowd can feel it too, feels filthy and buzzed and understood, desperate for the release only the drumline can offer. _Cigarettes and songs with a winter’s chafe._

She starts to take down dutiful notes- the way the stage lights fracture the bubblegum pink of Toni’s hair, Sweet Pea pretending to trip over the microphone wire and flashing a wink at Josie with frontman charm to spare- but Veronica flicks her pencil neatly out of her hands before she can even begin to get her thoughts down.

“What the hell?” she asks, squinting through the flash and burn of the stage to see where her only writing utensil has fallen.

“Live in the moment,” Veronica advises, shouting to be heard over the music, and then neatly plucks Betty’s notebook out of her hands, flicking the cover shut and handing it back over to her.

Betty rolls her eyes and huffs a sardonic laugh, but sticks the notebook in her back pocket all the same, letting the music crawl into her bones and settle there. She can feel the pulse of the drums in her chest, thumping quick and unnatural, and it’s strangely intimate, makes her feel larger than just her body alone.

They slide into another song, messy, no time for pause, Sweet Pea snarling _I know you love me I’m the chosen one,_ and they are still young as a band, imperfect and not quite all in sync, but there’s some sort of raw alchemy there that Betty can feel all the way through her spine, a magic that hums in her veins.

It ends too quick, and Betty is surprised by the sting of disappointment when the last song of the twenty minute set ends and they’re all plunged back into reality, the band unplugging amps and hauling things back offstage, Archie getting ready to go on for the main show.

Betty and Veronica watch the process of breaking down and rebuilding the stage for a few beats of silence, collecting themselves. Betty tracks the band’s movements as they wind down- Sweet Pea clapping Fangs on the back, Jughead pulling his t-shirt up to wipe the sweat off his face. Veronica offers Betty a cigarette, which she declines, and then lights one for herself.

“Boys are best when they’re still trying to prove themselves,” Veronica says, pensive around an exhale of smoke, watching Sweet Pea, and then, flicking her gaze down to Betty’s notebook. “You can quote me on that.”

Betty laughs, but the line sticks with her, makes her evaluate again the hungry gleam in their eyes, barely sated by the live show that’s just been played.

“I’m going to go find Cheryl,” Veronica says when the air has started to return to normal. “I want to catch up with her before Archie goes on. Come with?”  
“I’m good,” Betty replies, tactfully not mentioning the changing of _The Archies_ to just Archie. “I really do need to write some of this down.”

“So studious,” Veronica teases, but there are no hard edges to it. “Have fun, then.”

Betty waves her off and pulls her notebook back out, starting with the technical notes- the order of the set, the layout of the stage. She likes the precision of good journalism, the technique to it, the part that reminds her of what must have drawn her mother to it years before. She’s busy detailing the make and model of the band’s instruments when she’s interrupted again.

“So, what did you think?” asks a voice, deep and gravelly, and Betty looks up and sees Jughead standing in front of her. He’s still sweaty from the show, his hair in even greater disarray than before, drumsticks sticking out of his back pocket, one snapped clean in half.

Betty tries not to gape at him. _I thought it was brilliant_ she almost says and doesn’t, remembering who she is and what she is here to do.

“I think the songwriting sometimes teeters on the verge of too self-aggrandizing, and that you need to look at the pacing on the bridge of that last song.” Jughead quirks an eyebrow at her, but she continues, undaunted. “You need to balance the rigor and the ruthlessness. But- you’re excellent. I mean, _really_ excellent. The American Gothic influence _works,_ and once you get into your stride, I think you’re really going to do something.”

Jughead looks at her, shocked out of his devil may care composure. He laughs once, sharp. “Has anyone ever told you you’re awfully honest for a journalist?” he asks.

“Has anyone ever told you you play like you’re a man drowning?” she tosses back, easy as a loaded gun.

There’s a beat of silence, a mutual ceasefire. Jughead lights a cigarette and inhales long through his fingers, Marlboro slanted like he’s still holding a drumstick.

“Touche,” he says at last, dragging a hand through his hair, making the tangles in the back stick up even worse than before. There’s a constellation of moles on his cheek that Betty cannot stop staring at. The Archies show starts all too suddenly, like a door being kicked in, and Betty tips her head back to listen better, _just stop your crying it’s a sign of the times._

Archie’s voice is clean and clear and sweet, apple pie and popsicles in the summer, so different from the brutal force of _The Serpents_ that Betty’s ears ring with the cognitive dissonance.

She’s expecting Jughead to leave, to go find his bandmates and join the natural disaster of a party already starting around them, girls younger than her sprinting around in their perilously high heels and screaming along with the music, the heady smell of weed that makes her eyes itch. Instead, he sits down next to her, in the same spot Veronica occupied just an hour before, a different tenor to his presence than there was to hers.

“Archie wrote this one the day after he left P.U.R.E,” Jughead says, head cocked, listening. He’s referencing Archie’s start in a wildly successful boy band, plucked from oblivion and then rocketed up to the top of the pop music charts in a few short years. Archie wasn’t the first to leave the band, but it was his closing bow that marked the end of P.U.R.E and the breaking of a million adolescent hearts. _The Archies_ were announced a scant few months later with the midnight release of a self-titled album, and the rest was history.

 _You can’t bribe the door on your way to the sky_ Archie sings, plaintive, and Betty takes the new information and lets it filter the song for her, adjusting the lens until it clicks into place.

“Interesting,” she says, and Jughead smirks at her like he knows what she’s thinking, can see the clockwork of strict machine that is her mind. She suppresses the impulse to write the new information down in her notebook.

They spend the rest of the set like that, Jughead giving Betty anecdotes and insider information about _The Archies,_ funny stories about the ex-girlfriends behind certain songs, the drumline that came from one of Reggie Mantle’s one night stands humming as she made coffee one morning. She asks pointed questions and he answers about a third of them honestly, evading the rest with clever one-liners and even more clever sarcasm. It becomes a game after a while, to see how much she is able to pry out of him, what he is willing to give up.

Betty takes the scraps and tidbits of information, lets it coalesce into a greater picture in her mind, a forming image of an up-and-coming band trying like hell to make it big, burdened by the hedonism of American boyhood.

“So, where do you come in?” she asks finally, the question she’s been trying to puzzle out since their first interaction. “How did you and Archie meet?”

Jughead smiles in a way that looks more like a grimace, all sharp white teeth. “Our mothers were best friends,” he says. “We grew up in the same hometown for a bit. Childhood best friends, all that.”  
“What happened?” she asks, and Jughead’s gaze flicks down to the recorder, instantly suspicious.

“It’s off,” she reassures, holding it up for him to examine. “You’re off the record. Scout’s honor.”

“Like hell you were in the Boy Scouts,” Jughead says, relaxing.

“No, but I _was_ in the Girl Scouts,” she replies primly, and Jughead laughs. “Now, stop dodging.”

His demeanor shifts, becomes more serious, somehow weightier, tension in the sharp line of his jaw. “I moved when we were ten,” he says. “From upstate New York to Ohio. I became close with Toni and Sweets and Fangs, and Archie and I lost touch for a while, the way little kids do. We reconnected when both of us started getting traction in the industry. Then, after he left P.U.R.E, we got signed to the same label, and management thought it would be in our mutual best interests to tour together.

Betty absorbs the information quickly, trying to envision a young Jughead with messy hair and skinny limbs, a young Archie with the same ease moving through the world, and finds it both a better and worse origin story than what she was imagining. She’s going to say something, but before she can Archie appears, sweaty and beaming, pushing back the messy peaks of his hair. She hadn’t even realized the show had ended.

“You like the set?” he asks Betty, draping an easily affectionate arm around Jughead, who tolerates the contact with only mild displeasure.

“You were great,” she says warmly, noticing as cases are being shut and rolled out to the trucks. She catches Sweet Pea saying goodbye to Josie like a sailor heading off to port, dipping her in a lingering embrace.

Archie scratches the back of his neck, smile wide and honest. “Glad to hear it,” he says. “Listen, you should come up to L.A, we’ll be at the Riot House all week.”

“The Riot House?” she asks.

“The Continental Hyatt House,” Jughead says, mood suddenly dour. He lights another cigarette, looking moody. “It’s on the Sunset Strip.”

“Right,” Betty says, adjusting. “I’ll see if I can make it.”  
“Good,” says Archie. “And hey- tell Veronica to call me. Tell her it isn’t California without her, that we want her around like last summer.”  
Betty laughs a little, amused. “I’ll pass the message along,” she promises, and Archie ducks his head, pleased.

“We’re under the name _Harry Houdini,”_ Jughead adds, blowing smoke from the side of his mouth. “Staying on the third floor.”

Sweet Pea walks past them, arm already around another girl. “The enemy!” he calls. “Hey, come to L.A, we’ll talk some more!” Betty salutes him, grinning, and the other two boys rise, finally ready to leave for the night.

“We’ll see you down the line,” Archie promises. Jughead casts her one last glance, sloe-eyed and appraising. “Good luck with your story,” he says, and Betty is charmed despite herself. She nods, and the two boys disappear into the fray, coasting along the energy of a good show that hangs in the air like salt off a sea breeze.  

Betty starts collecting her things, ready to head home for the night and unspool her brain, but Veronica appears, breaking away from a crowd of girls to come talk to Betty.

“You just missed Archie,” Betty says, trying to gauge what the other girl’s reaction is going to be. “He wanted me to tell you that he’s at the Riot House all week and to call him. He’s under the name _Harry Houdini.”_ She pauses. “Do you know about the Riot House? _”_

If Veronica is fazed she doesn’t show it, just flicks the ash on her cigarette and blinks just once. “I think I’ve heard of it,” she says lightly.

“Right,” Betty continues. “Anyways, he had a message for you. He said _it isn’t California without you, and we want you around like last summer.”_ Veronica smiles, a private thing.  

“How well do you guys know one another?” she asks, and Veronica just blows smoke, quirking an eyebrow. “Right,” Betty says, clicking back out of journalism mode. “Long story. Got it.”

She stands and pulls her messenger bag over her shoulder, wishing she didn’t have to leave, didn’t have to return to her same small world, so different from the dirt and glitter of backstage. Veronica walks with her, flashing their backstage passes at the bouncer as they make their way out onto the exit ramp.

Veronica takes Betty’s notebook, still clutched in one hand, and scrawls down her phone number with an eyeliner pencil, handwriting loopy and elegant. “Call me if you need a rescue,” she says, surprisingly warm. “We live in the same city, after all.”

Betty laughs a little. “I think I live in a different world,” she says, and Veronica flashes her a grin.

They stand in the night air for a minute, the parking lot quiet now, tour buses gone for the next great adventure.

“Speaking of the world,” Veronica says. “I’ve made a very important decision.” Her voice is hushed in the way of a secret. “I’m going to live in Morocco for _one year.”_ She looks almost melancholy for a moment, glancing at Betty. “I need a new crowd.”

Betty nods, and Veronica gives her another look, almost appraising. “Do you want to come?” she asks.

“Yes,” Betty says, before she can even consider the offer. It’s mad to even think about- her mother would never let her take a semester off college to go to Morocco with a slip of a girl she met backstage at a rock concert of all places. Yet she cannot help but consider it, seeing a new country without the unrelenting pressure of her mother’s secondhand ambitions.

“It’s a plan,” Veronica says, like it really is all that easy. “You’ve got to call me.”

“I will,” she replies, and Veronica waves and disappears into the night with a gaggle of her friends, until she is illuminated only by the orange light of her cigarette. Betty watches her go with a strange feeling in her chest, the byproduct of what has been the strangest and most thrilling night of her life.

She sucks in a long breath and exhales it slow, trying to wrap her mind about the strange chain of events that have brought her here. With one last long glance at the building, the people still trickling out in a lazy stream and music pulsing from the windows of passing cars, she starts the walk home, the sky disorderly with stars overhead.

One week later and Betty is perched in front of her Smith-Corona Galaxie, the soothing click of typewriter keys lulling her into a trance. It’s meticulous, tricky work- winding the tape recorder back over and over, untangling the overlapping and barely discernible voices- and yet Betty loves it, lets the detailed work of the task pull her out of her constant and prickling anxiety.

“Elizabeth!” calls a piercing voice from downstairs, her mother’s sharp reprimand. “You’re going to be late!”

Betty rolls her eyes but slides back in her chair anyways, ignoring the protesting shriek of the floor. She stands to examine herself in the full length mirror on the back of the door, analyzing her high rise jeans and silky tank top with a critical eye. Her hair is loose around her shoulders, silky blonde waves that fan out around her face. It’s nothing like Veronica’s exotic glamor or Cheryl’s bombshell red hair, but she supposes it’ll have to do.

She jogs down the stairs, her trusty messenger bag over one shoulder, and finds Alice sitting at the kitchen table, sipping on a mug of tea.

“Have fun at Kevin’s, dear,” Alice offers, and Betty nods as she weaves through the kitchen, feeling the lie hang in the air.

“See you tomorrow!” she offers, and her mother smiles absently, gaze fixed on her book. Alice’s attention is an interrogation light, focused intently on only one thing at a time. Betty doesn’t let herself fully register in her mother’s consciousness, just slips quickly out the door.

Veronica is already waiting for her down the hill when she gets outside, perched by her canary yellow Vega, so ostentatious and glamorous a car it could only belong to a girl like Veronica. She cups her hands and yells up to Betty to get her attention, trademark fringe coat slung over one elbow.

“Betty!” she says, and she grins despite herself, slipping on water plants as she hikes down the hill still damp from sprinklers.

“Veronica,” she says, just as enthused, and the brunette flicks her cigarette into the wet grass. She’s wearing jeans tonight, and a silky white top tied up above her belly button, topped off with a floppy hat that exaggerates her film noir features.

Veronica gestures to the passenger seat, and then crawls into the driver’s side, car already running. The radio is blaring too loud, _Dancing Days,_ and Veronica sings along under her breath as she navigates out of the manicured lines of Betty’s neighborhood. _I got a woman who knows,_ she murmurs, turning a hard left while blatantly ignoring a turn signal.

The ride passes in a comfortable sort of quiet, both of them reverential to the music that pours through the speakers, Betty admiring Veronica’s amazing, subversive cache of music. Veronica is a quick but excellent driver, navigating the twisting roads until they’re coming into the proper part of the city.

She turns onto the Sunset Strip and the whole world pivots on its axis, changes right in front of Betty. The huge billboards lighting up are advertising _albums_ instead of beer, and the sidewalk crowds with people, dressed up and smoking on streetcorners, music pouring out of the other passing cars. Betty moves her head to the side to take it all in, to catch every bit of the geography that she can. Veronica catches her wonder and smiles at Betty, does her mocking impression of a tour guide.

“The Continental Hyatt House,” she says, gesturing to the hotel in front of them, bright with neon. “Otherwise known as the Riot House. Every band stays there, at least all the ones that matter. The Who. Zeppelin. Alice. Bowie.” Veronica’s didactic tone takes on a dreamy edge. “Everyone there knows one another. Twenty four hour room service, parties that go on until ten in the morning, you name it.” She takes a swift turn into a secret parking space

“And we’re not gonna hang out with Archie,” Veronica says, voice resolute. “You can if you want to, but I will not be.”

Betty huffs out an exasperated laugh. “What _is_ it with you and Archie, anyways?” she asks, but Veronica is already is already out of the car, Betty quickly unclicking her seatbelt to follow.

Veronica grabs Betty’s hand and adjusts her hat with the other, the two of them darting across the busy street, Veronica stumbling a little on her precarious platforms. They weave in and out of the humming tour buses, making a surprisingly good team.

The two of them blast in through the front door, into what is at first glance is a nightclub- a swirling mass of roadies carrying Halliburton briefcases plastered with tour stickers, drugged out partyers slumped in chairs with shades on, groupies with their crescent moon smiles. The atmosphere is illicit, intoxicating, and yet strangely communal, like a secret community of rock and roll. Betty’s heartbeat kicks up in her chest, and Veronica links their arms together, pulling her close.

“It’s all happening,” Veronica says lowly to her, and then, more serious- “And I’m about to use you as protection.”

Betty is going to ask what she means when a roadie with impressively unkempt facial hair approaches.

“Veronica Lodge!” he says, and Veronica grits a charming smile, nails dug into Betty’s forearm.

“Those guys are with Alice Cooper,” she says, and there’s a split second a double-take where Betty thinks Veronica is talking about her mother. “I’m going to pretend I don’t know them.”  
“Veronica!” says another, catching sight of her. “Does Alice know you’re here?”  
“I’m just showing my very dear, very wonderful writer friend around,” Veronica says, gesturing towards Betty. “She’s a very important writer- she knows Lester Bangs. I’m responsible for her moral conduct.” The roadie casts a leering look at Betty, and she manages a tight, impersonal smile.

Another man arrives then, catching sight of Veronica from across the room. “Veronica Lodge!” he says, mock drama. “God’s gift to rock and roll!”  
“I’m _retired,”_ Veronica insists, accepting a cigarette from one of the men and blowing an effortless smoke ring, like a cartoon character.

“Again?” asks the first, flashing a grin at her, and Veronica just blows smoke in reply, charming and dismissive all at once. Betty realizes with a start that Veronica has four men circling her in under a minute, a shark swimming in a fish tank.

“I’ve made a decision,” Veronica says grandly. “I’m going traveling in India for _one year._ Then I’m going to learn how to play the violin. Then I’m going to go to college.” Betty sidles a glance at her, perplexed and a little hurt. Veronica had sounded so earnest when she talked about Morocco.

“There’s nothing they could teach you in college,” says the second man, and Betty examines the lust hanging like a curtain over his gaze. He leans forward, voice dropping down to a whisper, too intimate for the rambunctiousness of the room. “Call Alice. He’s under the name _Bob Hope.”_

Veronica just smiles sunnily, no promise in her expression. “I heard you were with Archie Andrews,” says the first one, laughing around a swig of beer. Veronica’s face tightens, almost imperceptibly.

“ _Please,”_ she says easily. “I always throw the little ones back.”

Cheryl suddenly appears, long-legged as an ibis and with her impossible spill of red hair swinging down her back.

“Marc Bolan is a fucking asshole!” she shrieks, making her way effortlessly into their circle. Her lipstick is a perfect shade of pomegranate red, no smudges on her poreless skin.

“Cheryl,” Betty says, and Cheryl barely registers her, too busy ranting to Veronica about _rock stars and their fucking wives._ Betty goes to the house phone in the meantime, almost shouting over the din. “Harry Houdini, please,” she says, and the woman on the other end of the line informs her that it’s room 333. Betty likes the symmetry of the number, the symbolism of it. She discreetly pockets the notepad and pencil next to the phone, some memento of the evening.

Veronica sidles up next to her, flicking her gaze down to the phone. “Okay,” she says. “Time to put on the lampshade.”

Veronica and Betty make their way up to the room, Cheryl in tow behind them. The doors down the hallways are flung open, each one opening like a portal to another world- couples twisted up in bed, people having sing-alongs, stoners passing around massive and elaborate bongs.

They finally hit 333, and the door is already open, music and smoke bleeding out the entryway. Betty turns the corner inside and there’s a party in full swing in the small room, boombox cranking a James Brown song. Archie is at the center of the party, jabbing out the chords and playing along on guitar.

Veronica swings back her shoulders, like she’s steeling herself, and then swings into the party, arms extended.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” she sing-songs, in a pitch-perfect impression of a flight attendant. “Please extinguish all smoking materials and notice that the captain has turned on the No Smoking sign.” She plucks the cigarette out of Sweet Pea’s mouth and stubs it out on the coffee table, earning her a scowl. “Your seat and tray table should be locked in their full, upright positions. In the unlikely event of a water landing, the seat below you will serve as a-” she breaks off into laughter, giving up the bit. “Oh, the hell with it.” There’s a standing ovation as she takes a bow, instantly the life of the party, and she flutters around the room, chatting with people.

Betty grabs a bottle of beer for posterity, more interested in analyzing the room than drinking, the scattered blend of musicians and entourage, the girls with mascara eyes and pirate smiles and the boys holding instruments like they’re an afterthought. She sees Jughead from across the room, no drink in hand but smoking fervently, his eyes dark and downcast. There’s a feeling low in her stomach that she cannot put a name to.

Veronica’s small hand creeps onto her knee, suddenly next to her again. “He was looking at you,” she says, her voice low, and Betty feels the color rise in her cheeks. She flicks a nervous glance upwards, and Reggie is punching him in the shoulder, his gaze flying away.

“He wasn’t,” she says quickly.

Veronica tucks a strand of fine blonde hair behind her hair, and then leans in, gin and expensive perfume and cigarettes. “Boys never understand women,” she says, her voice disembodied. “Sometimes you have to shock them out of their world.” Betty’s heart is a staccato grande in her chest, a violent drumming against her ribs. “Do you trust me?” Veronica asks, and Betty nods, willful and wild and startling awake.

Her eyes flutter shut, and Veronica closes the gap between them, kisses Betty surprisingly soft, one hand at her jaw and the other in the loose waves of her hair. Betty swallows hard and it’s over, Veronica smirking at her with something dangerous in her eyes. “Now look up,” she says, voice low.

Betty looks up and Jughead is staring straight at her, his mouth slightly ajar in a way that makes him look terrifyingly young. Her head pounds, dizzy with all the feeling, and he is looking at her like there is nobody else in the world, like there never has been, and her heart is speeding down the freeway with no cops to stop it and there is a feeling in her spine that she cannot explain. There are girls sprawled around them like Veronica is their queen, handmaidens or ladies in waiting with their drawn on eyelashes and glittery lipstick, and it doesn’t matter, not at all. The air is too charged for comfort.

“I’m going to get some ice,” she says, breathless, and Veronica just smiles at her, cool and unimpeachable.

“It’s down the hall to the right,” she says, gesturing out the door, and Betty nods and stumbles up to her feet. The air is too hot, sticky where her hair clings to the nape of her neck, and she weaves through the crowds of people, thick with smoke and music.

The ice room is blessedly empty, and Betty finds a random plastic solo cup, holds it under the lever and waits for the cranky machinery to start back up. She presses her forehead to the cool surface, wishing for her heartbeat to settle back into her chest.

“You left quick,” drawls a voice, and she flinches, turns fast on her heel. Jughead is leaning in the doorway, holding her forgotten beer, the condensation soaked label picked apart by her anxious fingers. She takes the lukewarm bottle from him and sets it down, shockwaves running through her when their fingers brush. He has musician hands, long and slender, bumpy with oddly places calluses.

“I had to get some ice,” she says, the clunk of the machine emphasizing her point. She presses the plastic cup to her cheek, hoping to cool her flushed face.

“You a stare a lot,” Jughead says, but it’s not an indictment, just mild observation. His t-shirt is threadbare, the material so thin she can see the planes of his collarbone. She bites her lower lip, and his eyes darken.

“I just pay attention,” she says, raising her chin to meet his gaze head on. “It’s my job to notice the things that other people don’t see.”

Jughead casts his gaze up her, slowly, and she feels raw, exposed, like her skin’s been peeled away, exposing the nerves running underneath. He takes another step forward, and Betty’s back is pressed against the ice machine, blowing cool air down her spine.  “Can I ask you a question?” he says, and her mouth quirks into a smile.

“You already did,” she points out, wry. “But sure.”

Jughead opens his mouth to speak, but she cuts him off before he can. “ _If,”_ she adds, pointing a finger at him. “If I can ask you one, too. Truth for truth.” He considers the offer for a beat, and then nods.

“You drive a hard bargain,” he says, and then holds out a hand for her to shake. She takes it and tries not to shiver at the contact, palm to palm. His fingers skim the inside of her wrist as she pulls back, and Betty wonders if he can feel the frantic stammering of her heartbeat, blood running blue in the veins of her wrist.

“Okay,” Betty says. “You go first.”

Jughead looks at her, mouth quirking at the edge. “Why are you here tonight?” he asks. Betty crinkles her eyebrows.

“I told you already,” she says, laughing. “I’m working on a story.”

Jughead looks strangely triumphant. “You already published your story,” he says, and her stomach drops. “It was in last week’s Riverdale Tribune- _Serpents and Secrets: My Night with Two Up and Coming Rock Bands,_ byline B. Cooper.”

“You looked up the story?” Betty asks, shocked. It was barely even five hundred words, crammed in the back of the paper in the human interests section.

Jughead shrugs. “I wanted to see your full report,” he says, easy. “So. Why are you back?”

Betty tilts her head, glances up at him. “There’s always another story to be found,” she says, voice saccharine sweet. She doesn’t give him time to brace himself. “Who does the writing for your songs?”

“It’s collaborative,” Jughead says, voice short, almost nervous. “We all work to bring it together.”

Betty presses her advantage while she still has it. “I don’t believe you,” she says, and steps even closer. They’re barely half an inch apart, and she can see the rise and fall of his chest, his fingers flexing at his side. She has to tip her head back to look up at him, and she shivers at the heat radiating off him, like he’s running a fever. “The lyrics are too distinctive, the sentence structure too specific. There’s not a shot in hell it’s wholly collaborative. Maybe you critique one another, but only one of you is doing the brunt of the writing. Who is it?”  
Jughead exhales, a ragged thing. “It’s me,” he says, and satisfaction sparks up in Betty’s chest, like a match has been struck across her rib. “I do a lot of it.”  
“Interesting,” Betty says, and they finally step apart, Betty picking her plastic cup back up from where she’s set it down.

Jughead arches an eyebrow at her, sizing her up. “Well,” he says. “Pleasure doing business with you.” He holds out his hand to shake again, like it’s a dare.

Betty grabs his hand and shakes it firmly, doesn’t flinch at the prickle at her spine. “Likewise,” she says, just as easy, and then ducks out the room around him, keeps walking down the hallway and doesn’t turn around once. She tries not to imagine Jughead’s gaze on the back of her neck, watching her go.

  
  
  



	3. taper jean girl

Desire is no easy thing. Betty returns into the coiled, tense heat of the living room, people getting sloppier now, alcohol running quickly through the veins of the party. There are a mess of feathers floating through the air from a busted open pillow and she shudders when one lands on her shoulder, a barely there flicker. There’s a dark, molten heat in her stomach, kindled by Jughead’s burning eyes and bartered out truths. She spies Veronica in the corner and aims straight for her like a lifeline, her only anchor in this strange underworld full of trickster fairies and pomegranate seeds.

“B,” Veronica greets easily, exhaling a perfect smoke ring. It wobbles through the air for a moment before she stabs at it, like a petulant child. “How was the ice room?” She glances down at Betty’s cup, full of half melted ice.

“Fine,” Betty lies quickly, accepting the slosh of vodka and diet soda that Veronica tips into her cup. She takes a sip and fights the wince that puckers her mouth.

“Oh, I’m sure it was,” Veronica teases, glancing to where Jughead is making his way back into the room, flushed high in his cheeks and looking irritable, cigarette dangling from his elegant mouth. Betty swallows another sip of the vodka, letting it sink like an anchor to the bottom of her stomach. He’s so untouchable here in the middle of all these people, a proper rock star with girls lining up to lend him a lighter. She can hardly believe it was her just ten minutes ago, trying to outwit him in some small and dim ice room.

There’s a game of chicken going on in the middle of the party, drunken middle school sleepover style, Toni perched on Sweet Pea’s shoulders and Cheryl up on Archie’s, the two girls wrestling through their giggles, Archie and Sweet Pea jabbing one another in the ribs and still holding their beers in one hand. The cheering from the partygoers drowns out the previous sound of the music, sex and violence given to them all at once, delivered in a neat package.

Betty catches as Veronica looks at the scene in displeasure, mouth twisting as she watches Archie’s large hands wrap around Cheryl’s calves, keeping her in place as her and Toni exchange friendly blows, both of them laughing tipsily as they go. Toni gains the sudden advantage and knocks Cheryl back, the redhead sliding off of Archie’s back and onto the couch to raucous applause. She flips Toni off good-naturedly and the other girl blows her a kiss, sarcastic.

Sweet Pea gives Toni a piggyback ride as they do a victory lap of the room, swaggering and posturing around their mouthfuls of beer. Betty watches the spectacle and doesn’t realize that Veronica’s disappeared into all the commotion until Cheryl flops onto the seat next to her, only looking a little put out.

She’s still a shock to look at, so pale she seems to glow under the low light of the room. She plucks Betty’s cup out of her hands and takes a long swig of it, swallowing as easily as if it were water.

“You want to see something?” she asks, voice hushed and dramatic. Betty nods, rapt with attention. Cheryl ducks her head to the side, beckoning her to look at something.

“Act one,” Cheryl says, dark grin fixed in place. “In which _she_ pretends she doesn’t care about _him.”_

Betty looks to where she’s staring and sees Veronica talking coyly to Reggie Mantle, rubbing a hand over his bicep to admire a tattoo. Reggie looks awed and vaguely dumbstruck, covered by a thin veneer of cockiness. Betty puts it together a second before Cheryl continues.

“Act two,” she continues, with the dramatic flair of a Shakespearean actor, “In which _he_ pretends he doesn’t care about _her_.” Betty’s gaze flits over to Archie, talking with a couple girls but surreptitiously glancing at Veronica every moment or two, as if he cannot bear to look away. “But then goes straight for her.”

True to form, Archie breaks away from the conversation not a minute later, floats easily into Veronica’s orbit like it’s a gravitational pull leading him there. Betty wants to laugh at Cheryl playing at oracle, but finds herself too transfixed, watching as the two circle one another, like they are the only people in the world.

“And act three, in which it all plays out the way she planned it.” Cheryl tips her head back as she laughs, revealing her milky throat, her rusty hair pooling around bare shoulders.

“We have to stop them,” Betty says, concerned, remembering Veronica’s warnings and the old, dull hurt that lingered in her eyes when Archie offered her his hand to shake the other night. She knows Veronic can take care of herself and worries regardless, heeding her earlier warnings.

Cheryl laughs again, meaner this time, the high, vindictive cackle of a high school mean girl. “Stop them?” she asks, and takes another pull of vodka and diet coke. “You were her whole excuse for coming here.”

Betty feels the betrayal pool lowly in her stomach and she looks up, watching the tableau with a sharpened gaze.

“I need ice,” Veronica says to Archie, parroting Betty earlier, and then meets her gaze across the dim light of the room, winking at her, an inside joke. Betty tries to hold the resentment in her chest but it melts away despite her, dissolved by her fondness for Veronica. She’s as impossible to be angry with as a fictional heroine or mythical goddess, something like Cleopatra or Tinkerbell, lovely and clever, disappearing into smoke and mirrors. She doesn’t have to abide by the rules of everyday people, not when she’s made a myth of herself.

She slides out the door and Archie is tugged along after her, entranced despite himself. Betty’s eyebrows raise, and Cheryl adjusts her collar fondly, plucks a hair off of Betty’s blouse.

“I just worry about her,” she says, tone shifting suddenly, becoming more honest. “Veronica is one of those creatures that tends to bring the good out in everybody, _n’est pas_ ? It makes her easy to be used. And what to do all the vultures ever do for _her?”_ Cheryl shakes out her hair, lights a cigarette with a studied grace. “Life kills me, baby journalist. Do you have any pot?”

Betty shakes her head, mute, and Cheryl sighs again, red lips trailing smoke. One of the roadies for the band, _Moose,_ she thinks his name is, appears in front of them, proffers a beer to Cheryl with his boyish grin. The redhead stretches indolently for a moment, like some sort of predatory cat, and then stands on her pale, coltish legs, teetering in her precarious heels,  

“Forgive me father, for I may sin tonight,” she whispers to Betty with a wink, and then disappears under Moose’s arm, her grin merciless.

The party is starting to empty out now, people disappearing into a litany of bedrooms, only the hanger-ons left in place. Betty tugs out the notebook she nicked from the hotel lobby and starts to write down the surroundings, outlines the characters and the flow of the scene, the instruments that clutter the room like so many props. It’s an easy abstraction, one that allows her to pull herself out of the scene and into the shadows, as unnoticeable as the music that plays unattended to.

She tries not to wonder where Jughead has gone, whether he is in some dark alcove with a girl prettier than her, swapping secrets until the tension winds them into one another. Her stomach twists unpleasantly at the thought, her brain creating a gallery of scenes that could be playing out at the very moment, blue painted fingernails trailing along his bicep or someone else’s hands carding through his hair. _I don’t care_ she tells herself sharply, snapping the lead of her pencil with the force of her handwriting. _I don’t care._ Her handwriting runs jagged, skewed across the page. She’s not here for him. She’s here for the story.

She’s left to her thoughts for only fifteen minutes before Veronica reemerges from the ice room, her coat slung over one shoulder like a spoil of war. She grins coquettishly at Betty, flushed high in her cheeks like she’s just run a mile. Archie doesn’t follow.

“I’m about ready to bounce,” she says lightly, slumping down on the seat next to Betty. “You?” Betty considers getting angry and decides against it, lets Veronica lean her head on her shoulder, glossy hair running silky under her fingers.

“Ready whenever you are,” she replies, agreeable, prim Betty Cooper, never angry, always understanding.

They disentangle themselves from the couch and Betty stretches long, legs stiff from so many minutes spent curled up tight and observing like an interloper on a private world. She yawns, eyes itchy from the smoke that hangs like a cloud through the room.

They start to weave through the lingering crowds, Veronica affecting exhaustion to excuse herself from the various afterparties she receives invitation to. Betty glimpses at Jughead, collapsed sideways in an armchair in one of the bedrooms and still wearing that omnipresent beanie. She realizes with a start that the cigarette dangling between his fingers is actually a pen, that he has a notebook propped open on his lap. His brow is furrowed, serious as he takes a moment to write something. There’s a soft and desperate part of her that wants him to be writing about her.

Her and Veronica are quiet as they walk to the car, caught up in their own thoughts. Betty’s mind spins as she tries to process the influx of information to her brain, another take on the twisted cast of characters she’s only read about in the pages of magazines. She wants to know all their secrets, wants to find the narrative thread and tug on it until it all makes sense.

Veronica unlocks the Vega and slips into the passenger seat, Betty following, and they sit in the thickening dark for several seconds, not speaking, just listening to the ebb and flow of the city around them, heads full. Betty realizes with a start it’s the first time she’s seen Veronica not performing, and it’s jarring, to see her without the gleam of stardom, no wink or sleight of hand. She lights a cigarette, finally, and Betty accepts when Veronica offers her a drag, more because it seems like the proper thing to do than any urge for nicotine.

Betty brings it to her mouth, inhales a deep lungful of smoke and promptly proceeds to choke on it, coughing violently. She expects Veronica to laugh, make a joke about rookies, but she doesn’t, just rubs Betty’s back until the worst of the coughing fades. Betty takes another drag and feels wildly dizzy, like she’s just gone on an amusement park ride, unsteady in the parked seat of the car.

“You’re fine, the worst will pass in the second,” Veronica coaches, nearly maternal.

She passes the cigarette back to Veronica with shaking fingers and she props it in the corner of her mouth, inhaling like a detective in a film noir as she starts the car, finally. _My mother would kill me if she knew what I was doing_ Betty thinks with a terrorized, giddy thrill.

Veronica spins the dial up on the music, humming along with the music, _I’ve been a miner for a heart of gold._ She rolls down the windows, letting in the warm summer breeze, and the world feels suddenly full of promise. Betty drapes her arm out of the car and watches as her hand turns red and blue and purple under the neon lights of the signs.

_I crossed the ocean for a heart of gold_ they sing along at once, a little out of key, and then dissolve into laughter, linked together by the music and its jittery magic.

Veronica flicks ash out the window and drives one-handed, sidles a sudden glance over to Betty.

“So,” she says, not bothering with pretense. “How was the ice room?”  
Betty laughs at her uncharacteristic lack of tact, doesn’t quite know what to do with her hands. “Nothing like that,” she says, blushing, unsure how to characterize the interaction. “We just- talked.”

“Uh huh,” Veronica says, grinning widely. “I’ll bet.”  
“What about you?” Betty asks, trying to level the playing field.

Veronica makes a sharp left turn, a chorus of honks floating up behind her. “Nothing like that,” she deadpans, glancing at Betty. Silence falls again.

“You know,” Veronica  continues after a moment, “There’s something I always tell the girls.”

Betty has a knee jerk resistance to being characterized as one _of the girls_ but she stays quiet, waits for the advice.

“I always tell them to never take it seriously. If you never take it seriously, you never get hurt. If you never get hurt, you always have fun.” There’s a pause. “And if you ever get lonely, just go to the record store and visit all your friends.”

Veronica cuts off, something hanging in the air. It’s a good soundbite, clever and a little scathing, but she can tell Veronica isn’t saying something.

“But?” Betty prompts.

Veronica lights a fresh cigarette off the end of the old one, tosses it out the window. “But,” she says, “you already take it seriously, don’t you?”  
Betty laughs to hide her discomfort, jarred by the sudden and serious turn. She wonders if this is one of Veronica’s tests or games, but the other girl seems completely genuine, not looking for confirmation or denial.

“I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t,” she replies finally, voice stilted. It would have been so much easier, to go into sports journalism or small town news like her parents, to accept the Cooper model and follow the path so meticulously groomed for her. But there was something about music, something about it’s unfiltered rage and constantly changing face that drew her in, made it so that there were no other options, not really. She couldn’t _not_ take it seriously, not when music was the one steady thread of her life, through the messy wake of Polly deciding she no longer wanted to be a member of their family.

They pass the rest of the ride in silence, cityscape eventually giving away to the lush, manicured spread of the suburbs. Betty watches the streetlights pass and thinks about everything she would give up to be back at the Riot House, to stay in that same world that everyone else gets to occupy.

* * *

 Riverdale is a jarring return, though she’s only been gone for a night. Betty wakes up to the smell of pancakes, her mother’s puttering down in the kitchen, like it is any other morning from her adolescence. The house is quieter now that Polly is gone- the smallest movements become magnified, echoing through the hollow space. It disquiets Betty, sends a prickle through her spine.

She sits up in bed and stretches her arms up above her head, winces at the smell of old smoke that hangs in her loose cloud of hair. She can feel the imprint of last night on her like a bruise, tender and dark, and she tries to hold every bit of memory in her brain, the sticky heat and magic promise of something new.

There’s a brisk, perfunctory knock on the door, and then her mother whisks in, carrying a tray laden down with breakfast foods.

“Morning, sweetheart,” she chirps, studying Betty closely, searching for some sort of evidence of misdeed. Betty tugs her frothy comforter up to her chin, trying to look as neutral and innocent as possible.

“Morning, mom,” she says, gaze sweeping over the tray, stacked with pancakes and bacon and freshly squeezed orange juice, a lavish spread even for her Stepford mother. “What’s all this?”

“Well, I wouldn’t want you and Kevin to go hungry, sweetheart,” her mother says, a threat in her voice, and then Kevin slides in the door behind her, sheepish grin on his face.

“Right, of course!” Betty replies, cursing herself for forgetting she promised Kevin a breakfast date as repayment for being her cover. “I forgot to set my alarm!”

“Can’t blame you,” Kevin says, sinking down onto the bed next to her and folding himself cross-legged. “We watched _The Exorcist,”_ he tells Alice, who clucks disapprovingly. “I was hardly able to sleep.”

“Well, I think that film is completely inappropriate,” Alice begins, but spares the lecture when Betty gives her sideways, pleading look. “Regardless, have fun you two. Elizabeth, I expect you to help with the gardening at three o’clock, sharp.”

“I’ll be there,” she promises her mother, taking a slice of bacon from the tray. “Thanks again for breakfast!”  
    The door closes shut and the two of them wait with baited breath for the sharp clip of Alice’s heels to disappear down the hall.

Kevin takes a pancake and tips the saucer of syrup over it, easing into the familiar routine of Sunday breakfasts. “So, _spill,”_ he begins, crunching on a bite of bacon, dipped in syrup. “What happened last night?”

  
Betty smiles wide, eager to spill the fantastical details of the night before. Kevin has always been fun to tell a story to, reacting with all the appropriate gasps and snarky comments.

“Okay, so,” she begins, “Veronica- you know, the girl I told you about, the super cool one, she picked me up in her car to go-”

The phone suddenly rings, shrill and insistent, and they both wince.

“Elizabeth! Phone!” Alice calls from downstairs, as if they cannot hear it themselves.

Betty knocks over the saucer of maple syrup in her haste to answer it and swears quietly as it oozes onto her bedspread.

“Damn it, Kev, can you get that?” she asks, distracted, frantically dabbing at what is sure to become a stain, and he nods, picks her pink princess phone up off the hook.

“Hello, Cooper residence,” he intones, holding it away from his face so that Betty can hear.

“Hi there,” a male voice says with a studied sort of nonchalance, blurry with distance. “My name is Ben Fong-Torres, I’m calling from Rolling Stone magazine.” Betty’s heartbeat immediately kicks into overdrive, a shot of adrenaline pulsing straight down through her. “I was looking to speak with B. Cooper, is he available?”

Kevin looks flabbergasted, moves to hand the phone over to her, but Betty waves him off in a panic. “Pretend to be me!” she hisses to him, pressing the phone back to his ear.

“Ah, yes, this is he,” Kevin says, changing his voice to be deeper. Betty sits up on her knees, listening intently, syrup stain forgotten.

“Crazy,” the man says. “Listen, I’m the Music Editor at Rolling Stone magazine. We’ve got a copy of your stories from the Riverdale Register and Creem Magazine. This is the same B. Cooper?

_Holy shit_ Kevin mouths at her, eyes wide, and Betty waves her hand again, urging him to answer. “Yeah, it’s, um, Bartholomew,” he answers, and Betty rolls her eyes, amused despite herself.

The man shuffles papers on the other end of the line, like he’s searching for something. “ _Voice of god,_ howling dogs, the spirit of rock and roll...this is good stuff.”

Betty feels herself flush with equal parts embarrassment and pride, the feeling curling down through her toes. Someone from _Rolling Stone_ read her writing, thought it was good enough to bother calling up.

“Thanks, thanks,” Kevin says brusquely, flashing a grin at her as he gets more into the persona. “What can I do for you?”  
“You should be writing for us,” he says, and Betty’s heart plummets into her stomach so quick she can barely process it. “Any ideas?”  
Her mind fuzzes white for a split second, and then Kevin flaps a hand at her urgently, prompting an answer.

“Serpents!” she tells him before she can think too much about it. “The Serpents!”

“How about The Serpents?” Kevin asks, voice goofily deep. _What the fuck?_ he mouths, and Betty giggles a little bit, grabs his shoulders to listen closer. “You’re doing great,” she whispers to him, and he shakes his head at her, urging her to be quiet.

“The Serpents,” the man drawls, like he’s mulling it over. “Hard working band makes it big. Get ‘em to respond to the critics who have called the lyricism pretentious. Guitarist is the clear star of the band. Crazy. Let’s do three thousand words. You’ll catch up to them on the road. We’ll set up billing- don’t let the band pay for anything.”

Betty wants to dance for joy, wants to throw open all the windows, wants to scream with the unrestrained glee that pulses through her, better than any drug. Rolling Stone wants her to write for them. Wants _her,_ her brain, her words, her opinion. The validation coils tightly through her chest, makes it hard for her to breathe.

“Sounds great,” Kevin says when she doesn’t feed him a response. His smile splits his face when he grins at her, like they are children again.

Ben continues like Kevin hasn’t spoken. “We can only pay- let’s see. Seven hundred dollars.”

There’s a stunned beat of silence as Betty and Kevin stare at one another, wide-eyed.

“Okay, a grand,” he acquiesces, “What’s your background, anyways? Journalism major?”  
“Yes,” Kevin says emphatically. “Yeah.” The phone clicks suddenly, someone picking up on the other line.

“Honey, I need you to put the laundry in the dryer before you come down to garden,” Alice says, a familiar, maternal nagging, and Betty is momentarily paralyzed by fear.

“Well, I know how my lady gets when I don’t snap to it,” the man chuckles, and they exhale tandem sighs of relief.

“Crazy,” Kevin says, almost to himself.

“Crazy!” the man repeats. “I’ll let you go, then. Call me at the San Francisco office tomorrow, and we’ll iron out the details.”

Kevin hangs the phone back on its hook slowly, while Betty presses her face to her hands, shock running through her fingers. “Holy shit,” she says into the lattice of her fingers. Kevin grabs her by the shoulders, shakes her once, confusion and excitement all over his face.

“Betty,” he says. “What the hell did you just sign up for?”

She stands up on the bed, tugging Kevin up after her, still wearing her pajamas printed with tiny clouds. “I’m writing for Rolling Stone magazine!” she exhales, giddy and not quite believing it, and then they jump up around on the bed, narrowly avoiding the trays of breakfast foods, laughing wildly until Alice yells from downstairs to tell them to quiet down.

“Oh, god,” Betty says suddenly, remembering, stopping their spinning.

“What?” Kevin asks.

“Now I have to convince my mother,” Betty replies, suddenly struck by the immensity of the task.

Her and Kevin look at one another for a beat, and then burst into laughter again.

* * *

 Four days later, and Betty is packing the last of her bags, a simple leather duffel that Alice lent to her with strict instructions to care for it like one would a small child. There’s a record spinning on her dresser, and Betty hums along with it as she folds shirts, _now you keep on betting that the dice won’t pass._ Nothing in her closet seems fitting for life on the road, however transient, so she packs all of it, shirts with high necklines and dresses more fitting for Sunday service than a rock and roll concert.

“Remember, I want phone calls twice a day, morning _and_ evening,” her mother says behind her, and Betty twists, watches as her mother carries in a surgeon’s bevy of various medicines, meticulously labeled in their plastic sandwich bags. “And you promise me you’re not missing any tests?”

Betty laughs a little, accepts her mother’s concern. “I promise, mom,” she says. “You have all of the addresses, and I’ll only be gone for four days. I’ll be back before you know it.”

Alice frets, unconvinced, and Betty pulls her mother into a hug, lets herself be squeezed in a way that is only a little stifling.

“And _no drugs,_ ” Alice says into her hair, and Betty laughs, squirms out of the embrace.

“I know,” she says, and leans back over to zip her suitcase shut, heavy with everything she is carrying of home. _Pack light_ Veronica had advised when they last talked on the phone. It seems like too much stuff and still not enough, not a suitable anchor for the ocean she’s about to plunge into with no life vest, no swimming lessons.

“And,” Alice says, slowly like it pains her. “Have fun. Do good work. Tell the story as it needs to be told.”

Betty slings the suitcase over her shoulder, lets the nerves and excitement build in her stomach until the feeling is almost nauseating.

“I will,” Betty promises, and jogs downstairs, into the warm night air. There’s a tour bus already parked outside, ridiculous and shabby in their manicured neighborhood, _The Serpents- ‘73_ is spelled out across the front, and Betty feels her heart nosedive into her stomach as she takes it all in. Veronica leans half out the foggy window, waving with one hand and carefully holding her cigarette with the other.“The enemy!” she calls to a round of cheering, and Betty let’s the siren’s call of the open road guide her up the rickety metal steps, into the Great Perhaps.

_What am I getting myself into_ she thinks only once, and then surrenders to the mystery.

 

   

  



	4. pistol of fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The thrill and loneliness of the open road are warring factions in Betty’s head, fighting for territory. Everyone sings along with the radio, voices free and anonymous in the growing dark, the glow of a joint being passed back and forth. Betty writes in the gaps of streetlights, cool flashes of visibility in between the twilight. The bus struggles to make it up a hill, the engine shuddering in harmony with the bass of the music. 
> 
> Jughead’s father- F.P, she’s subsequently learned his name as- slaps at his seat. “C’mon Doris,” he yells over the noise. “You can do it, girl!”
> 
> There’s a roar of cheering as the bus makes its way over the top of it, and Betty strains for a look at the band, sitting five rows up. Sweet Pea is slouched over his guitar, working out a part. Next to him sits Veronica, a Polaroid camera slung around her neck. She catches Betty’s staring and holds the camera up before she can react, the flash capturing her naked wanting. 
> 
> “Gotcha,” Veronica says, grinning. Color rises high in Betty’s cheeks before she can stop herself, feeling like she’s been caught doing something illicit. Feeling seen. A row up, Fangs grumbles through the depths of a hangover. 

The thrill and loneliness of the open road are warring factions in Betty’s head, fighting for territory. Everyone sings along with the radio, voices free and anonymous in the growing dark, the glow of a joint being passed back and forth. Betty writes in the gaps of streetlights, cool flashes of visibility in between the twilight. The bus struggles to make it up a hill, the engine shuddering in harmony with the bass of the music. 

Jughead’s father- F.P, she’s subsequently learned his name as- slaps at his seat. “C’mon Doris,” he yells over the noise. “You can do it, girl!”

There’s a roar of cheering as the bus makes its way over the top of it, and Betty strains for a look at the band, sitting five rows up. Sweet Pea is slouched over his guitar, working out a part. Next to him sits Veronica, a Polaroid camera slung around her neck. She catches Betty’s staring and holds the camera up before she can react, the flash capturing her naked wanting. 

“Gotcha,” Veronica says, grinning. Color rises high in Betty’s cheeks before she can stop herself, feeling like she’s been caught doing something illicit. Feeling seen. A row up, Fangs grumbles through the depths of a hangover. 

Toni suddenly plops next to her in the seat, her presence holding a certain gravity despite her small stature. She looks at Betty for a moment, like she’s taking inventory. “Do you have any pot?” she asks, finally, nonchalant, and Betty sighs.

“No,” she says, firm. “I’m a  _ journalist _ .” 

Toni nudges her, friendlier than before. “Well, go do your job then,” she says, dusky pink hair framing her face. “You’re on the road, man. It’s all happening. Get in there.” She flaps a hand at Betty, urging her to go. 

Challenged now, Betty rises and goes to approach Sweet Pea, figuring she should start with the lead singer. His guitar is perched in his lap like a small child, exaggerating his bad posture, fingers trailing loosely over the chords. His bad mood radiates off of him, sours the air as Betty crouches in the aisle.

“Sweet Pea,” she says, firm and polite, trying to project an air of professionalism. “Do you think we might be able to find a time to talk when we get to Phoenix? I want to interview everyone separately, and I thought it would be beneficial to talk to you first.”

“Yeah, for sure,” Sweet Pea answers, noncommittal. Jughead twists around from where he is sitting in front of them, silently watchful. Betty feels simultaneously small and uncomfortable under observation as Sweet Pea turns back around. 

“The thing is,” she says pushing onwards. “I’ve got this thing in a few days.”

“What,” Sweet Pea says, flat.

Betty feels her face heating, stupidly self conscious. She digs her fingernails into the meat of her palm, relishing the sting. The calloused skin of old scars doesn’t break open, but it’s a near thing. 

“I have an awards ceremony,” she says. “For college. A journalism thing.” She’s up for an award for best undergraduate piece in the country for her review of the latest Bowie album, but to mention it would feel tacky, like bragging. 

“I never went to college,” Sweet Pea says, sharp. “And look what happened. You’re here interviewing  _ me _ .”

Betty tries to hide the hot, vivid flash of anger that pulses in her. There’s a chorus of laughter around them. It’s a good line. She glances up and Jughead is still watching her, intent, gaze knowing. He caught the slip, that sliver of rage. She starts to write the line down in her notebook dutifully. 

“No, no,” Sweet Pea says, glancing at the notebook suspiciously. “Don’t put that in Rolling Stone. My bio says I graduated. We’ll come up with something better later- just enjoy the ride.”

The dismissal stings. Silence falls, and Veronica steps out into the aisle over Sweet Pea’s lanky legs, picking her way across. She hands Betty a Coke, still cold, and catches her by the elbow, leaning in to whisper in her ear. 

“I may need to stay in your room tonight,” she says low, covert. “The boys are all in a bad mood. They’re very Bob Dylan in _ Don’t Look Back.  _ It’s what happens whenever they try to write. Jughead’s moods are contagious.”

Betty wants to know whose bed exactly Veronica is meant to sleep in, but holds her tongue. Veronica’s friendship feels like a precious, ill-fitting ring, easily lost in the ocean. She went home and did her research, she knows that Veronica is the jilted heiress to the Lodge fortune, that she gave up her shares in the family company for life on the open road. She wants to know more, wants to play her cards carefully, wants to know the things that make Veronica tick. 

Instead, she nods at her, moves to sit back in her seat. They’re comrades, partners in crime. 

The ride passes uneventfully after that, twilight burning down like the wick of a candle until the desert dark settles in around them. A wall of pot smoke is exhaled into her face, hazy and thick, itching in her lungs, and Led Zeppelin plays at full blast over the radio. It’s a living documentary, happening all around her as they dip into the bowl of the city. 

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Phoenix!” F.P yells as they roll up to the hotel in the main downtown strip. The air is sticky with heat, and Betty’s limbs feel slow with inertia, the many hours spent curled up in her seat. She shrugs her bag up on her shoulder and follows the band off the bus, lingering in the background of the clusters of people all chatting and exhausted. 

They enter the lobby like a pack of warriors, bound together by mutual cause, and F.P wears his authority like an old jacket as he approaches the front desk. He has the gritty ease of an old road dog, perpetually telling others how to do their jobs. 

The hotel chairs are spotted with curious hanger-ons, decked out and lounging. A sort of pride worms its way through r chest as she catches their stares, like she is a part of the band. 

F.P hands out room keys, luggage tags, barking orders at the band like they’re children. The Serpents take it for the most part, sullen but obedient, accepting the old hierarchy like they’re children instead of rock stars. 

Betty and Veronica stand in the loose circle of people, Veronica’s tackle box purse banging at her hip. She whispers gossip to Betty as they wait with the crisp authority of a newscaster. 

“ _ That  _ is Evelyn Evernever,” she says, glancing over at a girl with rust colored curls and blown out pupils as she walks by. “Rumor has it she was involved in the Manson Family a few years back, before everything went down, of course. Anyways, she’s done so much acid I doubt she even remembers.” She gives a polite wave as the girl goes past. 

Betty’s going to ask more, but doesn’t get a chance to. “The enemy!” F.P finally says, turning to her. “Here you go, the key to your room. You’re number forty-two.” He claps a hand on Betty’s shoulder, friendly, and she smiles politely as he hands over the key. 

“Is this Ms. Cooper?” the clerk asks, a nervous, ponytailed girl. “You have a message from your mother.”

Betty smoothes her features into a sort of neutral disinterest as she accepts the folded up piece of paper, mortification burning hot in her chest. “Thanks,” she says.

The girl leans over further from her desk, glancing around surreptitiously. “She’s a handful,” she says.

“I know,” Betty says, and wants to tell the girl that she doesn’t know the half of it. Instead, she scrunches the message into her pocket without reading it.

Nearby, Cheryl has reappeared, talking quickly and loud over the chaos, clacking around in her platform heels, her lush spill of hair distinct and pomegranate red in the diminished light of the hotel lobby. Last night’s clothes are now today’s, and she holds an armful of blouses on hangers in one arm, her travel case in another.

“Finally, you’re here!” she says, sharp and accusatory even as she folds into Veronica’s arms in an embrace. “They kicked me out of my room! Fuck Ozzy!” Another girl appears behind them, face familiar.  _ Josie,  _ Betty remembers with a sharp burst of memory, her presence the very first night. 

Cheryl complains about Ozzy in a staccato burst, adjectives spilling like rounds of gunshots. Betty stands awkwardly at the corner of the circle, briskly aware of her outsider status until Veronica grabs her by the wrist, pulling her in.

“Betty,” she says. “Can Cheryl stay in your room tonight? She had a big fight with Ozzy, and Josie’s not working out with Sweet Pea.” There’s little room for dissent in an argument like that, so Betty nods her agreement, giving Cheryl a lukewarm smile. Cheryl in turn sniffs at her, but seems to acquiesce. 

“Me too?” Josie asks, and Betty dips her head in a tight nod, unable to abandon the manners Alice drilled into her so fiercely. “Of course,” she says, and Veronica smiles, satisfied. 

“You guys just have to remember,” she says, affecting a didactic, scholarly air. “These guys are jealous, insecure, talented, and manipulative people. They’re  _ lead singers.  _ They can say  _ I love you  _ to twenty thousand people, but any less than that is a real problem.” Cheryl and Josie nod, comforted, and Veronica turns to Betty.

“Sweet Pea has so much jealousy over Jughead that he can’t express,” she informs her, tone knowing. “They need to get it together or the tour will go to pieces.”

“Right,” Betty says, mentally clocking the new information. “I’m gonna go grab a glass of water.”

Veronica nods at her, distracted as Cheryl and Josie begin to argue about closet space, and Betty slips off, trying to collect her thoughts. 

She goes to the water cooler, located at the perimeter of the lobby, and notices Jughead and Sweet Pea, ducked behind an oversized potted plant and having a heated discussion, if their hand gestures are anything to go by. 

Betty takes only a second to think about it as she fills her paper cup. She takes a sip of lukewarm water and slips around the corner so that she can listen, undetected. 

“- an idiot if you aren’t fucking worried,” Sweet Pea hisses.

“We can trust her,” Jughead says with a forced sort of casual. “She wrote favorably about us in her town paper.”

Betty feels a shock of adrenaline roll down her spine as she realizes that they’re talking about her, like a freezing blast of lightning. She fights to remain perfectly still, to go undetected. She can feel her heart start to beat hard in her chest, strumming through her veins. 

“But it’s  _ Rolling Stone,”  _ Sweet Pea replies, tone sharp. “She looks like a cute little thing now, but she represents the magazine that trashed Eric Clapton, broke up Creem, and ripped every album Zeppelin’s ever made. She’s the fucking enemy. She writes what she sees.” 

A nasty thrill goes through Betty at that, something raw, feral.  _ Good,  _ she thinks with a vicious end.  _ I’m the journalist. I’m the one that holds the cards.  _ It’s not respect, not exactly, but it’s close enough that she can’t taste the difference. It’s better than the condescension or all out dismissal. 

“- would be cool to be on the cover, though,” Sweet Pea is saying now, reflective. Jughead murmurs something impossible to make out, and the blood rushes through Betty’s ears. Their conversation tapers off, and Betty turns around the corner, walking briskly so as not to be detected. 

She thinks of the terrible bolt of longing that slashes through her every time she watches Jughead light a cigarette or twirl a drumstick or scrawl down a lyric and vows to kill it, the savage  _ want _ that sloshes heady and total inside of her. 

_ Jealous, insecure, talented, and manipulative  _ quotes Veronica inside her head.  _ He’s the rock star, you’re the enemy.  _

Betty digs through her pockets to find her room key as she approaches her room, finds the crumpled up message from her mother still inside.  _ DON’T TAKE DRUGS  _ it reads in all caps, and Betty is quick to snap it back shut, aggravated and fond in equal counts. For a singular beat she wishes to be back in her childhood bedroom, a place where the stakes were all known in advance. 

She opens the door and Cheryl and Josie are going through the intense ritual of inhabiting a room on the road. There’s a  _ Serpents  _ song on the t.v radio, Sweet Pea’s low voice scratching as he sings  _ where is it that you want to take me?   _ She feels twitchy, compulsive, like she’s living inside the band, unable to get away from it.

Betty is self-conscious as she sits cross legged on the furthest bed, starts paging through the hotel room phone book. Cheryl flutters a paisley scarf over the room lamp, blowing out the glowing embers of too many sticks of incense. Josie chats on the phone, twirling the cord around her finger tightly. 

“Hi Dad!” she chirps, “I can’t talk long! I’m here in Paris. I’m staying in another youth hostel with no phone and no address for mail!” She props a French travel guide open on her knee, Betty watching in amusement as she recites facts about European tourism, the dutiful daughter. “I can see the Eiffel Tower from my window!” 

Meanwhile, Cheryl is still ranting without an audience, loudly slamming cosmetics in the bathroom as she unpacks. “I was the one who told him what to tattoo on his fingers, I was  _ there  _ when his wife left him!” she seethes, her silk robe cinched tightly around her waist. Clothes are already scattered around the room, lots of flimsy blouses and sheer stockings, a feather boa tied like a noose around the door handle. Betty feels keenly like an outsider in her own room. 

Josie, finally off the phone, yanks the drapes open to look down at the hotel pool. “Oh my god,” she says. “Simon Kirke of Bad Company is  _ out by the pool.” _

Cheryl sweeps over to look with her, and the two girls begin an intense, hushed conversation about whether he has left his wife yet that Betty cannot help but overhead. She instead pages through the thin pages of the phonebook, wondering at all of the names, all of the  _ people  _ here. 

“Betty, darling, I’m going to order room service,” Cheryl says, picking the phone back up. Her bossiness reopens a nagging wound, and Betty lets the friction bubble to the surface. 

“Okay, wait,” she says. “Put down the phone. First of all, this is  _ my  _ room.” 

“Come on,” Cheryl says with an eye roll. “You’re a fan like us. You’re on our side of the line.”

Betty pushes ahead, undaunted. “Second, I’m not on your side of the line. I’m a professional. I’m here to do a job for one of the biggest newspapers in the country.”

“Ooh, sorry Hunter S. Thompson,” Cheryl says, mocking but with no heat behind it. 

“Third!” Betty continues, seizing the momentum of her moment. “In a minute, I have to go interview Toni. Do  _ not  _ answer this phone if it rings. I have family members with  _ severe  _ anxiety problems. She will not understand.” 

“But what if Ozzy calls Cheryl?” Josie says, wounded. “And I gave Jimmy Page this number.”

“Or a guy who  _ looked  _ like Jimmy Page,” snips Cheryl. 

Betty looks at their troubled faces, full of too much longing and too much makeup.

“Okay,” Betty says, annoyed and not. “Answer the phone. But if it’s anyone  _ without  _ an English accent, hang it up. Or say it’s the wrong number.”

* * *

It’s raining outside, and inside the stadium feels damp and charged, the ceiling pressing down low overhead. Backstage is its usual swarm of frantic activity, men in black hustling back and forth to get everything ready, the audience humming with anticipation behind the curtain. Betty is asking one of the Serpent’s roadies questions about the band when Veronica approaches, wordlessly handing her a bottle of beer. 

Veronica looks her up and down, and then pulls a clip out of her tacklebox purse, snagging Betty’s hair out of its tight ponytail and sliding the clip in instead, ruffling her smooth wave so that they frame her face. 

“There we go,” she says with a grin, and Betty instantly feels older, cooler. She takes a sip of the beer, swishing the bittersweet foam around her mouth. 

There’s a drumroll, and F.P comes out onstage, ready to introduce the band. The best part of the day has finally begun, and anticipation curls up Betty’s spine. 

“Good evening, Phoenix!” F.P says, and the crowd cheers wildly, a mass of crackling energy. “From Troy, Michigan, please welcome  _ The Serpents!”  _

The band jogs onto the stage, and immediately they launch into a new song, something Betty hasn’t heard before. It’s dark and rolling with the lushness of a thunderstorm, and Betty shudders when Sweet Pea’s voice comes in,  caught up in these tricky, strange harmonies that almost grate but resolve sweet—like the burn and flush of hard liquor.

“ _ My body tell me no, but I won’t quit ‘cause I want more,”  _ he howls into the mic, voice straining so that you can see the tendons in it, body curled over the mic and sweaty hair all in his face, and they are so good that Betty forgives his rudeness and insolence, forgives it all immediately. Next to her, Veronica has her head tipped back, the long line of her throat exposed, raw and unpolished.  _ I want more, I want more.  _

She looks at Jughead and he is the eye of the storm, hammering the snares so hard he is nearly forced up out of his seat. The audience is a forest of arms, everybody out of their seats and grabbing towards the stage, Toni laughing as she spritzes a beer into the crowd of people. 

Jughead reaches down to adjust an amp, and there’s a sharp, electrical pop, barely noticeable in the loud din of music. Betty wouldn’t have even picked it up if she wasn’t already looking at him. For half a heartbeat his face is blank, hand still wrapped around the cord, and then he  _ snaps  _ his hand off the metal, face white. Betty watches, heart bloodied in her throat, as he stumbles up, walking off the stage and collapsing in a pile two seconds later. 

The music grinds to a confused halt, a car speeding out with the engine suddenly gone, the audience roaring out with indignation as the heart of the song is yanked out. Veronica grabs Betty’s hand in her own, watching the disaster with wide eyes.  “What the fuck?” Sweet Pea yells, loud enough that Betty can hear him over the onslaught of noise. Across the way, she watches as F.P pulls up a half-conscious Jughead, forcing him into a standing position. He looks sickly and sweaty, stumbling as F.P attempts to hook an elbow around his shoulder. 

Sweet Pea isn’t singing anymore, and everything has devolved into staticky feedback, Fangs and Toni rushing backstage after Jughead. “Holy shit,” Veronica breathes next to her. A promoter grabs the mic from where Sweet Pea has dropped it onto the stage. “Everyone be cool!” he urges, the audience turning angrily, boos already coming up from the crowd. Everything gets lost in the chaos for a minute, people shouting in confusion. 

F.P must have handed Jughead off to Fangs and Toni, because he comes up behind them, barking orders at the swarms of people around them. “We’re getting out of here!” he shouts, and Veronica tugs Betty after her, slipping too fast to follow through the crowds of people. “Come on,” Veronica urges when Betty stumbles, “We gotta make good time, this is gonna be a shitshow.”

The bus is already pulled up to the back when they exit the backstage in a confused rush. “Get in, get in!” urges F.P, helping Toni lug a pale Jughead up the stairs to the bus. The club promoter from before arrives, red in the face and radiating anger.

“Are you the manager of this band?” he demands of F.P, shoving his shoulder to force the older man to turn around. 

F.P turns, and there’s an unfamiliar slant to his features, something almost menacing about him. Gone is the gruff, friendly stage manager. 

“Damn straight I am!” F.P barks, and the promoter looks even angrier. 

“You didn’t even play a full set,” he says, slapping the contract against F.P’s chest. 

“Your shitty set-up almost killed my drummer!” F.P replies, yanking the man’s wrist away from his chest. He says  _ drummer  _ like the word is a substitute for  _ son.  _  He starts walking towards the bus, dismissive, and the promoter follows close on his heels. 

“You trashed the dressing room, you didn’t play the full thirty-five minutes, you didn’t fulfill your contract-”

“Everybody in!” F.P shouts to the last stragglers. “Get in the bus!” Betty wants to stay and watch the end of the confrontation, but Veronica drags her towards the bus, their fingers still laced together tightly. 

“If you want to watch F.P take a swing at someone that bad, just wait until the next time Sweet Pea and Jug get into a fight when Sweet Pea is wasted,” Veronica says, amused, and Betty finally follows. 

Betty cranes her head to keep watch behind her, collapsing into a random seat with no thought of who might be in it. Jughead is sitting next to her, pale and still holding his singed hand. He looks at her, goes to say something, and then F.P swings up onto the bus, the promoter shouting about locking up the gate behind them. 

The bus door shuts, and revs up slowly, gaining speed. It races towards the rapidly closing gate ahead, and F.P glances over at Jughead, something sly in his grin. 

“Want to buy a gate?” he asks. There’s no time to reply, the bus bashes through the gate, and there’s a rowdy round of cheering from everyone around her, laughing and screaming. Betty can’t help but laugh at the strangeness of it all, the absurdity of the adventure. 

Jughead is a silent observer of the chaos, F.P urging the bus through the next thoroughfare, the rest of the band dramatically retelling the story, mythologizing in real time. 

“What did it feel like?” she asks Jughead, nodding at his hand, not so polite. 

Jughead grins at her, warm with a charisma he can switch on and off. “It burns. It feels like a dose of lead shooting through your body, and suddenly you realize what’s really important in life. What you really want.” His smirk practiced. “It’s pretty rock and roll.”  
He’s talking to her like she’s a reporter again, something changed between them after Sweet Pea’s warning. She smiles back at him, just as wide, just as dishonest. “You’re so full of shit,” she tells him, marks with satisfaction the break in his composure. 

“What?”  
“I said that you’re full of shit,” Betty repeats, pushing him, wanting to see what happens. That rock star smirk disappears, and he glowers at her, amused and annoyed in equal measure. 

“Fine,” he snaps. “It fucking hurt.” 

Betty picks up his hand from where it’s sitting limp in his lap. His hand, awkwardly elegant, knuckles bumpy and calloused from years of playing. Wide palm, narrow fingers. Ink scribbles on the back of his hand. Jughead looks at her, suspicious, but letting her. 

She doesn’t know what possesses her, whether it’s a desire to win the next round of their unspoken rivalry, to stifle the attraction still sparking hot and acidic in her stomach. But she presses his hand to her mouth, the tender patch of skin between thumb and index finger, where he got shocked. Jughead’s dark eyes flash with surprise and want. 

It’s barely a second, and she lets his hand drop back into his lap. Satisfaction burns warmly in her chest, and slides back out of the seat, going to the back of the bus to sit with Veronica. 

“I hope you feel better,” she says, meaning it and not, everything unsaid held between them.

Jughead just looks at her. When he smiles, it’s slow and intentional and a little mean. He salutes her with two fingers, and Betty disappears down the narrow aisle of the bus, fighting hard against the urge to turn around. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here we go!!! finally!!!! thank u all for being so patient as I fought through this chapter, and thank u so much for all the love you've given it. im so appreciative!!!! feel free to come chat @flwrpotts on Tumblr, and comments/kudos as always mean so much!!

**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much for reading, and feel free to come chat with me on tumblr @flwrpotts!


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